How to vote for Kewanee as Best Small Town

Online contest conducted by Rand McNally

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Star Courier - Kewanee, IL

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Posted Aug. 23, 2013 at 10:00 AM

Posted Aug. 23, 2013 at 10:00 AM

Kewanee

EDITOR’S NOTE: Kewanee is one of the communities in the running for the title of Best Small town in an online contest sponsored by Rand McNally. Kewanee High School graduate Joy Hernandez, now a TV news photographer in Indianapolis, has been tracking the voting in the contest, and offered these tips on how people can cast their votes for Kewanee.

Here’s a quick rundown of the voting process and the contest. It will be thorough, so, sorry for the length, but, hopefully, it will make the process easier and answer quite a few questions. If anyone has any questions, they can email me at nothingtofear@hotmail.com, post the www.facebook.com/kewaneewalldogs page or call me at 317-997-5933.

Go to http://www.bestoftheroad.com/town/kewanee-il/5983

Click the blue “Vote” button

A box will pop up to either sign-in or, if this is your first time, click the blue text that says “Not Registered Yet?”

If you click that, it will go to a different page. This page will have spaces for your first and last name, your e-mail address and your username.

You can make up your username to be whatever you want. Many people use their e-mail address. You can also make your password whatever you want it to be. It will also ask if you own an RV. Check if appropriate, or if you want to. Click the blue “sign-up” button.

It will take you back to the main page. Navigate your way back to Kewanee’s page (where it says “All States” you can click there for a drop down menu to Illinois, and go there — we’re currently in second. Or just scroll down the main page a bit until you find us — we’re 11th, as of Thursday, nationally).

When you get back to Kewanee’s page, click the blue “Vote” button again. It will make a pop-up box to choose a category. There are six choices in a drop-down menu. We’ve been picking “Friendliest” as the main one, and are currently third in the nation for just that category. But you can pick whatever you want.

It will say THANK YOU! when the vote goes through. You’re done!

You can vote once every 24 hours. So if you voted at 8 p.m. on Monday, you can vote again at 8 p.m. on Tuesday.

If you forget and try to vote earlier, after you log-in, it will tell you when you click vote, how much time you have until you can vote. Just come back and do it again at that time, no problem.

Page 2 of 3 - Once you’ve registered, you only have to sign-in to vote the next day (that sign-in box mentioned before will pop up, asking for your e-mail that you entered upon registering and whatever password you choose).

It goes by email address, so anyone in your household with an e-mail can vote. Votes aren’t tallied by household so get everyone to vote!

As of Thursday afternoon, Kewanee was in ninth place nationally and in Illinois, in second place, about 1,600 votes behind Quincy. We have a 100-vote lead on Lombard, but we shouldn’t get relaxed, they do have many voters. Quincy got a really good start on them, but we can catch them.

As of this writing, Kewanee has 1,009 votes. We need to triple that to beat Quincy, and they’re in fourth place for the nation (just 40 votes behind third-place Jefferson City, Mo.). We at least want to be in the top five, nationally, as the prize goes to all five.

That said, there is 1,000 votes between Quincy in 4th and Peachtree City, Georgia, in 5th, and we are only 600 behind Peachtree City. That is completely do-able, IF you get a super ton of votes and get everyone you even say hi to everyday to vote! (Well, not that, but, hey, if we got all of those people to vote, we’d be winning!)

On the Kewanee Walldogs Facebook page, we’ve been encouraging voters to take a picture of themselves holding a sign saying “I voted!” or “Go Kewanee! Friendliest!” or something like that. If they post it to the KW page, we will reshare it to the page, as a sign of pride and support.

We are encouraging people to get creative, stand in front of landmarks in town, or whatever they’re proud of, or make them silly, whatever

Also, businesses are encouraged to get their entire staff to vote, and then take a photo of their staff, with, say, something they do or make that they’re proud of (for example, the entire staff of the Pioneer Club with a sign that said “We Voted!” and holding up some tacos on Thursday night).

It’s free publicity for the business, but also shows community support. And we need the votes. Take multiple pics! Change them up! Have fun with it!

Also, there’s a practical side to this: There is a ‘social media’ score to this. Rand McNally wants to see how we spread the word and what attention we get in doing this. Photo memes and stunts are attention getting and easy to do. And, if taken in front of landmarks and stuff, a good way to show Kewanee pride. That helps our overall score.

Page 3 of 3 - The top five towns get featured in a TLC show. But! We have to really kick butt in the mean time, and, after we finish in fifth place, we have to do a video thing and a few other tasks. So we need to make ourselves look super cool, fun, friendly, and have town pride, in the meantime.

Also, we need people to share the voting page link to their Facebook walls. Post the link, copy/paste it onto your wall, or click the “share” link at the bottom of a KW Facebook post.

I do this every day and get about 10 people to vote for Kewanee, who, all they know about the town is that they like me (or, in some cases, they want to vote against Lombard or Quincy! Hey, whatever works!).

Tweet the link, share it on linked in. Put it in cups in the Wethersfield fence, for all I care, just get the word out there! When you see friends out and about, bring it up, discuss it.

Also, I will be back in town for Hog Days and hope to set up a laptop near some WiFi to help register and get votes on the spot, taking advantage of the large crowd we have right before the deadline. I encourage as many businesses with internet access to do the same.

All you have to do is have a computer or laptop available, walk someone to it, have the page ready, have them sign-in, register, vote, and they can go about their day. Log them out, find someone else, repeat.

We have Hog Days. Use it. We may not get repeat voters, but it’s the final days, so we can totally have that going.